Most baby and child foods sold in Dutch supermarkets are unhealthy, according to a study by GGD Amsterdam.

The research, conducted by Questionmark, examined products commonly placed in special children’s sections, RTL reported. These included meal jars, fruit jars, baby porridge, child desserts, and breakfast cereals for young children. The vast majority failed to meet the healthy nutrition guidelines set by the Netherlands Nutrition Center.

Sixty-six percent of fruit jars and 80 percent of baby porridge had too much added sugar. Many products, particularly meal jars containing ham or cheese, also had excessive salt. Most meal jars also provided too few kilocalories to qualify as complete meals. If babies and young children consumed these products daily, they would exceed recommended intakes of sugar and salt.

The findings were released by 23 health funds. Diena Halbertsma, speaking on their behalf, said: “Supermarkets make choosing healthy options too difficult, which is why government intervention is needed to allow children to grow up healthy.”

Halbertsma pointed to the 2018 National Prevention Agreement, which included voluntary commitments from manufacturers and supermarkets to reduce the levels of fat, sugar, and salt. “But we now see that it still has insufficient effect,” she told RTL.

Gustaaf Haan from Questionmark said parents should not bear the burden of checking labels. “That is the last thing you as a parent of young children have time for,” he said. “A supermarket that can say its entire children’s section meets the guidelines for healthy nutrition would be very attractive for young parents.”

The Netherlands Nutrition Center advises parents to be cautious about products in children’s sections. Liesbeth Velema, an expert at the center, said: “Check whether sugar or salt has been added. In that case, you’d better leave such a jar on the shelf.”

Halbertsma warned against early exposure to sugary foods: “You don’t want children to get used to extra sugar in food at a young age. Then people will also eat more of that at a later age, and this can cause health damage in the long term.”

Children naturally like sugar, Velema noted, “but they, of course, also need to get energy, and they already get enough of that through (breast) milk and regular food.”

The health funds are urging supermarkets to offer healthier options for babies and young children and calling on the government to introduce stricter rules. “There are strict requirements when it comes to the safety of food, for example, the amount of pesticides,” Halbertsma said. “However, there are no strict requirements regarding the healthiness or unhealthiness of food.”

The Centraal Bureau Levensmiddelenhandel (CBL), the Dutch supermarket industry group, responded that “as the supermarket and foodservice industry, we are committed to a balance between consumers’ freedom of choice and our responsibility to offer healthy and accessible foodstuffs.”